Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Wednesday March 02, 2011 @01:00PM
from the i-can-see-my-neutron-from-here dept.

gamricstone writes "Scientists have produced the world's most powerful optical microscope, which could help understand the causes of many viruses and diseases. Previously, the standard optical microscope could only see items around one micrometre — 0.001 millimetres — clearly. But now, by combining an optical microscope with a transparent microsphere, dubbed the 'microsphere nanoscope,' the Manchester researchers can see 20 times smaller — 50 nanometres ((5 x 10-8m) — under normal lights. This is beyond the theoretical limit of optical microscopy. 'Seeing inside a cell directly without [it] dying and seeing living viruses directly could revolutionize the way cells are studied and allow us to examine closely viruses and biomedicine for the first time.'"

No, it's about killing the cell, since a cell does not survive an electron microscope, and it's probably no possible to see a living cell with a scanning near-field microscope or an atomic fore microscope. For a scanning tunneling microscope it would have to be covered with a conducting layer,so that one is out too.

"Among other tiny objects the scientists will be able to examine are anodized aluminum oxide nano-structures, and nano-patterns on Blue-Ray CVC disks, not previously visible with an optical microscope."

I think the GP is largely complaining that they left off the 'e' in front of the exponent. Perhaps '-8' was written in superscript and somehow that formatting was lost. "5 x" is atypical but "10-8m" is wrong.

You are correct that engineering notation would have made more sense, reminding readers what a nanometer is.

mmm, subscripts and superscripts are a pain because computers generally treat them as "formatting" (which is stripped with no indication if the target doesn't support it unlike unrecognised characters which are usually replaced with a question mark or similar) yet they carry important semantic information.

Even worse was the old symbol font which when accidentaly replaced with a regular font would make some incredibly nasty substitutions (like turning lower case mu into m and therefore making values wrong by

No, the theory is correct, but they aren't doing a direct observation... they are covering the target with little spheres that are in direct contact and then observing the light that comes out of the little spheres- no rules about our understanding of diffraction limits are broken.

No, the theory is correct, but they aren't doing a direct observation... they are covering the target with little spheres that are in direct contact and then observing the light that comes out of the little spheres- no rules about our understanding of diffraction limits are broken.

I don't really understand this.If those little spheres are acting as lenses then how is it not a direct observation?

If those little spheres are acting as lenses then how is it not a direct observation?

You can recover information that is usually lost in far field observation by putting something (like these spheres) very close to the source that turns those evanescent waves [wikipedia.org] into propagating waves you can observe in the far field.

The whole point of evanescent waves is that they are standing perfectly still. They're present, but they don't oscillate, they don't move, they don't grow and shrink, so they don't transmit anything : there's no energy available for that.

I was confused as well. I think, though, that the "beyond the theoretical limits" statement applies to typical microscopes which use an aperture for visible wavelengths (which would restrict viewing to objects far larger than 50nm). Somehow, this transparent microsphere that they use is a different structure that gets around the restrictions of a typical aperture, though I don't know how. So to answer your question more concisely, the theory isn't really wrong, instead they found a clever workaround (to whi

So is the theory wrong, is the article wrong (yes, I did RTFA), or did they find some clever workaround?

This is one of several clever workarounds [wikipedia.org]. The article lacks details, I'm guessing it's because the concept is pretty complex. I only half understand the structured illumination method mentioned in that wiki article and I think that's probably a simpler concept.

Yeah, why would anyone bother miniaturizing expensive research equipment, like computers, radio transceivers, cathode ray tubes, plasma phosphor grids, internal combustion engines or refrigeration coils, just so people could have them at home? That's just silly.

I'm butchering his words, but it's something like they make a wafer with millions of slots shaped like every virus they've ever seen, and you spread infected fluid on the chip and the area with slots that shape turns a different color.

Skip to about 10:00 mark for a relation of them using it to diagnose a viral infection that had never been documented before.

peek-a-boo!I can see youand I know what you doso put your hands on your faceand cover up your eyesdon't look until i signalpeek-a-boo! peek-a-boo! peek-a-boo!the way that we weren't iswhat we'll becomeso please pay attentionwhile i show you someof what's about to happenpeek-a-boo!I know what you docause I do it toolaugh if you want to orsay you don't careif you cannot see it youthink it's not thereit doesn't work that way

really, we're back to Rife [wikipedia.org] again?!!!Next somebody will rediscover the t-bacilli that cause cancer.And that the Deros live underground, shooting deadly DOR at surface dwellers to give them nightemenmares.

meh. I guess with the sad state of educmacation in this country, we'll see a lot more of these kind of whackjob claims.

Seeing inside a cell directly without dying.. could revolutionize the way cells are studied

I work in a biology lab, and looking directly into a cell is one of my most dangerous tasks. Lesser men have been struck dead by viewing the horrors that lurk beneath the cell membrane. A microscope that lets us look inside a cell without dying would revolutionise biology forever!

I built and used scanning electron microscopes back in my distant youth. We always referred to microscopes as "light" or "electron" or even "ion" (yes, we built a prototype ion microscope). All of these have optics in the form of lenses and apertures and could correctly be called optical microscopes.

I built and used scanning electron microscopes back in my distant youth. We always referred to microscopes as "light" or "electron" or even "ion" (yes, we built a prototype ion microscope). All of these have optics in the form of lenses and apertures and could correctly be called optical microscopes.

If you built an electron microscope you know it has "lenses" not lenses. The quotes are important - a focusing magnet isn't an optical element. Also, "optical" implies light: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optics [reference.com].

Technically there are some scanning electron microscopes that measure created x-rays or cathodoluminescence but it's still a pretty bit stretch to call those optical microscopes. Hybrid electron-optical would be a better description.

The summary says, "This is beyond the theoretical limit of optical microscopy".
Which theoretical limit? The only theoretical limit that I know is diffraction limit (angular resolution is about wavelength/lens_diameter or lambda/D). But that only applies for objects far off (distance much larger than D^2/lambda. so it is quite accurate for telescopes). There is no direct theoretical limit for microscopes. The semiconductor manufacturing uses near field photolithography for ages where they routinely create features smaller than the diffraction limit.

Actually it's worse when things are closer. Focusing plane waves must only bend/reflect the light a little, and a simple parabolic mirror will do. But when you aren't in the far distant limit, the light is still expanding outward, like the light from a candle, in all directions. Now you need something MORE angled than a parabolic mirror, you need to bend the light MORE, so the limit is hit even sooner. This is widely studied, and there are plenty of theoretically sound models taking into account your specif

Something I've always wanted to know is why can't scientists throw UV or even xrays on the matter in question and 'transpose' or shift any reflected light back up to the normal visible spectrum? Of course, xrays penetrate objects, but is this 100%, or is a tiny percentage reflected back?

It is a matter of simplicity of optics, damage to the sample and contrast. Visible light optics are very advanced (i.e. glass lenses), but it starts to get difficult as you head towards shorter wavelenths. X rays, especially high energy (short wavelength) ones, are extremely hard to focus. Short wavelengths of light also damage biological samples (imagine UV and sunburn). A key requirement for generating an image is high contrast, use of very short wavelength light/electrons requires heavy metal staining to get good contrast, not exactly ideal for looking at a living cell.

Something I've always wanted to know is why can't scientists throw UV or even xrays on the matter in question and 'transpose' or shift any reflected light back up to the normal visible spectrum? Of course, xrays penetrate objects, but is this 100%, or is a tiny percentage reflected back?

This is exactly what Royal Rife (who once worked under Carl Zeis) was claimed to have done.He hetrodyned two UV sources incident on the cell to produce sum and difference frequencies, where the difference frequency was visible light.The story goes on that he was then able to destroy specific virii (including cancerous) by using a highly modulated RF carrier, where the modulation frequency (ie not so much the specific carrier frequency but rather its amplitude modulation frequency).Then the consipracy theor

The story goes on that he was then able to destroy specific virii (including cancerous) by using a highly modulated RF carrier, where the modulation frequency (ie not so much the specific carrier frequency but rather its amplitude modulation frequency).Then the consipracy theories start, where his machine threatened the cancer establishment (AMA), and all his work, machines and lab were maliciously destroyed/discredited.

Cells are cancerous, but virii can cause a cell to be cancerous. A virus itself cannot be cancerous, because it cannot reproduce alone. More importantly, this magical technique can tell the difference between a healthy cell and a cancerous cell, which might only be two or three switched genes out of trillions? And this will work over my entire body, despite any reflection and other interference?Virii are a bit more believable, but still, the difference between two virii could be only a single gene swap.

They do. X-ray microscopy has been around for a long time, and is highly developed in areas it's useful in.

It's not so great for most biology because x-rays tend to go through things pretty well, and when they don't they do a lot of damage. Plus they're a pain to focus. Now, if you want to look at crystals....

I was wondering why they mention "normal light". It's not at all a measure of comparison between this new microscope and its predecessors. I figure it's an artifact of something mentioned by the interviewed scientists. The subject of observation can react to abnormal light levels, and may even die, so they cannot just up the light level.

I watched this TED talk here: "http://www.ted.com/talks/sheila_patek_clocks_the_fastest_animals.html" which details a scientist's struggles to see a tiny organism (a mantis shrimp) at high speeds, and she stressed "low light" was important, because too much light would kill it. While in the film business, more light equals better video, the same cannot be applied to biology.

By "normal light" they mean normal white light illumination, most pre-existing sub-diffraction resolution techniques use illumination of fluorescent dyes which require illumination by a specific light wavelength and do can only detect the stained structures.

So, as someone who hasn't studied optics in at least 6 years, and doesn't plan on picking up a book regarding the matter anytime soon, I have a very naive, and possibly silly question.

Could a similar technique to this be used in reverse to make more powerful telescopes?

Well, lets see...

The new nano-imaging system is based on capturing optical, near-field virtual images, which are free from optical diffraction, and amplifying them using a microsphere, a tiny spherical particle which is further relayed and amplified by a standard optical microscope.

... So, your new macro-imaging system would be based on releasing actual optical, far-field images, which are subject to optical diffraction, and amplifying them using many macrospheres, huge spherical bodies, which are further relayed and re-focused by a standard optical telescopes.

I think that's a great idea! In fact, I believe that the technique is already in use.

That is pretty much the description of using huge collections of macrosphere bodies (planets, stars & black holes), A

Sure. But it would involve putting a lens very close to the thing you want to look at.

Magnification isn't usually an important limit for telescopes anyway. The limiting factor is usually how much light you can gather. If you want really high resolution, interferometry already lets us do insane things like see sunspots on other stars.

This increase in resolution to ~50 nanometers is about 4X better than the ~200 nanometers (0.2 micrometers) that (because of diffraction) is the absolute best one can obtain with normal, visible light microscopy, assuming one uses oil and apochromatic objectives. For reference, we used to use the diatom, Amphipleura pellucida, which had 40 striae (lines of holes) in 10 micrometers. If we could see the striae (0.25 micrometers apart), we knew we had an excellent objective. If we could count the striae, we

Maybe you could, oh I don't know, read the article? Just first posting some dumb question that can easily be answered by taking a second to READ does not make you seem insightful. Of course, it wouldn't take a genius to figure it out without even reading. This new technique is beyond the theoretical limits of standard optical microscopy because it doesn't freaking USE standard optical microscopy. Uh dur.

The new nano-imaging system is based on capturing optical, near-field virtual images, which are free from optical diffraction, and amplifying them using a microsphere, a tiny spherical particle which is further relayed and amplified by a standard optical microscope.

Professor Li, who initiated and led the research in collaboration with academics at the National University and Data Storage Institute of Singapore, believes their research could prove to be an important development.

He said: "This is a world record in terms of how small an optical microscope can go by direct imaging under a light source covering the whole range of optical spectrum.

"Not only have we been able to see items of 50 nanometres, we believe that is just the start and we will be able to see far smaller items.

"Theoretically, there is no limit on how small an object we will be able to see.

However, even with no limits, these scientists would be hard pressed to image your brain.

They are already apparently measuring things (interference) at less than a Planck length.

According to Einstein’s view on the universe, space-time should be smooth and continuous. However, this view may need to be modified as space-time may be composed of quantum “points” if Hogan’s theory is correct. At its finest scale, we should be able to probe down the “Planck length” which measures 10-35 meters. But

Whaddayamean hard pressed to image your brain? Never heard of fMRI (non-invasive). I work with someone who has a device that will actually take your brain, slice it in sub-millimeter portions and then automatically image the whole thing onto a computer (2 TB/hour).

This is beyond the theoretical limit of optical microscopy."
So either the scientists are lying, or the theory is wrong. Which is it? Pons? Fleischmann? Anyone?

The dumbed down version (the only one I understand): light has a "size" of about 200 nanometers, and you wouldn't expect to see detail smaller than that using light. Recently though, people have found a way around that.

This actually isn't the first microscope to break that barrier. There's OMX [medgadget.com] for one.

This is not really an extraordinary claim. I once had a debate with a devout disciple of science who claimed that world was governed by science and that all creationist were retarded. He knew this because scientist could SEE electrons orbiting the atoms and stuff. Apparently scientist eyeballs work a lot better than creationists eyeballs, which can only see down to the wavelength of the light they are using to see with. Scientist eyeball can see all the way down to the size of an electron using nothing m

So either the scientists are lying, or the theory is wrong. Which is it? Pons? Fleischmann? Anyone?

Its journalist BS. Doesn't mean a hell of a lot. When does journalist BS mean anything?

Way back in 1874 Abbe figured out the theoretical limit of microscope resolution. Far field resolution with positive refractive index materials, that is. Thats all we had back then. Kind of like how the romans probably could have made silicon diodes, if only they had purer silicon...

Its kind of like those theoretical thermodynamic limits. Not that its easy to even come close, but conventional physics says this is as far as you could dream of going...

For decades (centuries, really) they fooled with stranger and shorter light wavelengths, and continually optimized the material science of their lenses to get better NAs. Unfortunately they optimized themselves into quite a tight little local minimum. Recently they came up with some pretty far out material science. Also some pretty weird electromagnetics, trying to use nearfield instead of a farfield system.

They "broke all the rules", in journalist speak, much like a music band or a car body designer breaks all the rules, but that doesn't mean they can levitate or glow in the dark or something, it just means they tried something pretty far out. Unlike the car designers and musicians, the result of this foolishness is actually pretty cool and useful.

You could accurately compare near and far field work like conventional vs quantum mechanics in that a lot of what you "expect" from one, does not work in the other.

This article is not about a totally new area of science or something, just one particularly well done demonstration / experiment. Its some cool applied engineering, not new theoretical science. And I believe my little/. post is probably better and more informative than any mainstream media story will be about this topic.

The semiconductor fab guys exceeded the "theoretical limit" for photo-lithography years ago. I'm writing this post with a processor with 45nm features and I believe Intel is planning 22nm this year. Not sure how the technique compares to the microscope, but people have been using light for things much "smaller" than light for quite some time now.

Actually, it would seem you fail English via trying to apply mathematical rules to it.

The phrases 'times less than', 'times smaller', 'times fewer' have been in use in the English language for hundreds of years. Swift, Newton, Herschel, Boyle, and Locke all used those phrases at one point or another in their works. Now, generally speaking an argument from authority is not a good argument, but when you're talking about language which is by definition defined by the way it's used I think it is a sound one here. Those examples of usage are from hundreds of years ago, by some of the most educated, intelligent people of their times, I think it is safe to say the phrases were in standard usage then as they are now.

Obviously you can argue that logically or mathematically the phrasing doesn't make sense. The thing about language is that is is neither mathematical nor logical.

Lately, I've been hearing complaints about the usage of "times less" pop up quite a few times around here.

First of all, it's a common idiom. Idioms aren't always used in a way that some might find to be mathematically consistant. A bird in the hand is not the mathematical equivalent of two in the bush.

Also, this idiom is actually mathematically consistent in that it clearly suggests a multiplicative inverse (or reciprocal).

Finally, this is a very old usage. It has been documented to have existed for three centuries years. This doesn't mean that the journalist is stupid, unless you also would consider a writer such as Jonathan Swift to be stupid.